In a computing environment, servers are often used to store and manage data. A server may be a typical computing device used by a consumer, for example, or a specialized computing device designed merely for specific data storage and management operations. Often servers can be used individually or linked together to provide services to users, such as a home computer network, an office data storage network, or an online gaming environment.
Servers may also be combined into a very large server farm that manages and stores very large amounts of data. Typical use of very large server farms may include online services systems, such as sites that provide Internet-based search engines, online mapping, document upload and retrieval services, and more. Other uses may include large enterprises, such as multi-national corporations and governmental operations, or large communication services, such as phone companies, Internet-service providers, and Internet-content provider or aggregators. These very-large server farms often comprise many hundreds or thousands of servers linked to appear as a single system to an end-user.